Update: To the surprise of no one, anywhere, the government has requested an emergency stay of the injunction.

Original post:

A welcome opinion in Klayman v. Obama has privacy advocates cheering on Twitter. Devlin Barrett of the Wall Street Journal is the first main stream media reporter to report it, although the paper attempts to downplay its significance:

A federal judge has ruled against the National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ phone records—a victory for civil-liberties advocates—but the impact is limited because the program is due for major changes by month’s end.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon on Monday sided with conservative legal activist Larry Klayman, who had requested a court order barring the NSA from collecting the phone records of some of his clients. The clients had sued the NSA over the data collection following revelations from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Read more on WSJ. I’ll post links to coverage by privacy advocates as they become available, but I love the fact that Judge Leon refused to delay his ruling, noting that the loss of constitutional freedoms for even one day is a significant harm.

CORRECTION: This post’s update originally reported that an emergency stay had been granted. It had only been requested at the time of the update.